Near Swansea we visited the unusual convict-built Spikey Bridge built way back in 1841. The bridge was made from field stones laid without mortar or cement and the parapet features field stones laid vertically, giving the bridge a spiky appearance.
It's claimed that the spikes were designed to prevent cattle falling over the sides of the bridge, though it turns out the real reason is to help the bridge weather harsh winds. There are also the remains of the governor's cottage on the hill overlooking the unusual bridge.
We also visited the...

Probably should have mentioned Brisbane in the title - after pruning, the plan was to drive to Brisbane (which we did) to get our house ready for sale, supervising renovations (which would have been substantial after being rented for 17 years!) and then put her on the market. We expected to take, at the very least, 3 months. As luck would have it our long-term tenants knew a couple who were interested. Long negotiation with several unplanned delays but the upshot was that we settled on 6th Nov with no renovations, no agent's commission and...

Left the very nice caravan park at Port Arthur under grey skies and travelled about 2 kms to the Tasman River Cruises terminal. From here we caught their specialised speed boats for a 2.5 hour cruise around the coastine to Eaglehawk Neck. The trip took in about 60kms of spectacular coastline with seals, killer whales, albatross and dolphins as well.
In the last 30 minutes or so it started raining which added to the trip as well. A great trip.
We caught the bus back to the terminal and then set off in the rain for Sorell. We arrived there at...

Just to let everyone know what's been happening since we got back in February, apart from pruning. See photos - many hours of renovating.
OK, down to business - the address book attached to our blog site has become monumental. Have images of people scratching their heads saying "now who the hell are Sonia & Peter??...."
So....if you want to continue receiving our annual blogs (not compulsory), kindly respond to this one - if you can't work out how to on this site, just send us an email on howlong51@hotmail.com.
Thanks.
NOTICE TO FAMILY:...

Swansea – 21 February to 28 February (7 nights)
The 141km drive from Launceston to Swansea was very pleasant and on good roads through hilly and twisty turny countryside.
Swansea is a town located 135km NE of Hobart, in the centre of Tasmania's east coast, on the northwest shore of Great Oyster Bay and overlooking the Freycinet National Park. It has a population of about 550 and was the first municipality in Australia to be established after Hobart and Sydney. Swansea was first settled in 1821 when George Meredith, his family and workers...

Today we left our cosy prison block to go and explore Port Alfred before moving on up the coast.
We was going to go and see the Port Alfred prison until we realised we had already seen it last night on our ghost tour! so our next port of call was the Tasmanian Devil Park.
We got there just in time to see the little devils being fed, aparently they have the strongest bite of any living mammal, a little devil fact for you there!
After this there was a bird show which was pretty cool. It was very interactive with the crowd and you got to see...

We spent 5 days cruising around Tasmania. Driving on the other side of the road was an adventure in itself for sure. Especially where the roads were narrow, windy and are 100km/h. Oh...and the traffic circles too.
There was some awesome scenery to see though and hopefully you can pick it up from the pictures. Tasmania is filled with Parks and there's lots to do in them. Waterfalls, lakes, mountains, rivers and everything else that goes along with them including the wildlife. We saw a few wallabies (and a lot of dead ones on the road), a...